A conventional electrospinning apparatus and a process for preparing a non-woven fabric using the same have been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,044,404.
The conventional electrospinning apparatus includes; a spinning dope main tank for storing a spinning dope; a metering pump for quantitatively supplying the spinning dope; a plurality of nozzles for discharging the spinning dope; a collector positioned at the lower end of the nozzles, for collecting the spun fibers; a voltage generator for generating a voltage; and a plurality of instruments for transmitting the voltage to the nozzles and the collector.
The conventional process for preparing the non-woven fabric using the electronic spinning apparatus will now be described in detail. The spinning dope of the spinning dope main tank is consecutively quantitatively provided to the plurality of nozzles supplied with a high voltage through the metering pump.
Continuously, the spinning dope supplied to the nozzles is spun and collected on the collector supplied with the high voltage through the nozzles, thereby forming a single fiber (nano fiber) web.
However, the conventional electrospinning apparatus alone is unable to electrically spin two or more different polymer spinning dopes separately, thus nano fibers made from two or more polymer spinning dopes cannot be uniformly distributed in a nonwoven fabric or filaments.
Therefore, in order to distribute nano fibers made from two or more polymer spinning dopes in a nonwoven fabric or filaments by using the conventional electrospinning apparatus, two electrospinning apparatuses have to be installed side by side, and then different polymer spinning dopes have to be electrically spun in the respective apparatuses, which makes the apparatuses complex and the procedure difficult.
Meanwhile, a nozzle block with a distribution plate of two or more layers, that is, multi-layers, has been used in order to electrically spin two or more different polymer spinning dopes separately through different nozzles arranged in the same nozzle block.
The conventional nozzle block has been problematic in that the apparatus and the procedure is complex because it has a distribution plate of multi-layers installed therein.